


as ever sun has faded (you cannot turn away)

by kimaracretak



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: (mostly fire and cosmic wars tbh), Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bajoran Culture, Character Death, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, Imprisonment, Mirror Universe, Multiple Narrators, POV Second Person, Prophetic Visions, i'm having a bajoran moment don't touch me, not particularly reliable ones but yknow, our gods must be infallible because if they are not what then is left for us, prophets and pah-wraiths and the improbable line between the two, quesionably moral godhood, redemption or possibly just the belief therein, religion talk of the needs more horrorterrors sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-11 01:38:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7870504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(you sense the coldness of your skin like icy glass / you feel your empty shadow like a faint painful call / they pass inside my wounded soul like mortal love / hold me in my darkest hour): You ask for little, and she gives less, but every word in her voice sends shivers down your spine, all of you reaching out for her across every temporal implausibility, every word a victory.</p><p>Or: Bashir makes it back to their timeline. Kira does not.</p><p>minifics to each song in <a href="http://8tracks.com/kimaracretak/as-ever-sun-has-faded-you-cannot-turn-away">this fanmix</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	as ever sun has faded (you cannot turn away)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shinebrightlikeanimon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinebrightlikeanimon/gifts).



> For [gluecookie](http://gluecookie.tumblr.com/) in round 3 of the [trek rarepair swap](http://trek-rarepair-swap.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Title from Stream of Passion, 'Spellbound', summary quote from Leaves' Eyes, 'Symphony of the Night'

**kira** (rest assured i will not leave you until your world is mine) || Julian makes it back. _Julian makes it back_. Over and over you repeat it to yourself, tapping your fingers against the cold metal of the cell floor. Julian makes it back and the mission is not a failure.

Still, though, you're in a cell and _she_  isn't, _she_ is prowling outside with a hunger in her eyes more loving than any you could ever imagine making its way into your own.

Her eyes are yours. Her eyes are never going to be yours. Her eyes could have been yours.

 _Sweet girl_ , she says, and she's so close to the forcefield you're surprised she isn't burned. _Silly, sweet girl. After all I wanted to give to you._

Her fingers twitch in half-echoes of yours, which you still instinctively. She will not take this from you too.

(Is it stealing, if you and she were the same once? She would capture you, conquer your world, and those, yes, _those_  would be taking, but how many of the bits of dead stars the Prophets brought together to make you came together just the same over here?)

You say nothing. You can hear her heartbeat in the silence, and it's funny, almost, to think that she _does_  have one hidden away under those layers of leather and vinyl.

She deactivates the forcefield, steps so close to you that you think now it is _you_  who should be burning from the heat of her body.

Your face, but her body, because even in the coldest winters with the least shelter your fingers have never let such a bone-deep chill seep into those you touched. You hold yourself still, so still as her hands cup your cheeks, slide down your arms, stroke the thin bands of your cuffs before curling possessively around your own.

 _I might even have let you go, once_ , she says, and you whisper _liar_  against her lips.

She laughs, and it's not quite cold, just as her eyes are not quite sad. _It doesn't matter now. Now, I have you until you're mine._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 **mirror!kira**  (i'd give it up for you) || Even in defeat she is beautiful, glorious and stubborn in a way that tugs at something far deeper inside you than your heart because she's you and _yours_.

You've known about the doppelgangers since you were a child, though you never expected to meet one. Everyone knows about Spock, about the things he made possible after meeting the _Enterprise_  crew from the other universe who defied time and space to land in his lap. Everyone knows that the doppelgangers are _weak_.

Not Nerys, though, and you're not surprised because you know you wouldn't be, either, in her place. Nerys has fought and bled for her Bajor, and now she will fight and bleed for _yours_  as it becomes hers.

Everything that is yours you would let become hers as well, and were you weaker the thought would frighten you. But you can give her a Bajor that is strong, you can give her a Bajor that can love her back. You can give her your own love.

Not yet. She isn't ready yet. She doesn't pull away from your voice, your hands, your plans, but she bites her lips til the skin shades white and then red. Crimson like the strange uniform she first wore when she first fell to you, and anger flares in you at the memory.

She's yours. So strong, so brave. But all yours.

She doesn't ask if you'll let her go, doesn't ask if you'll kill her. She doesn't speak at all, except to answer direct questions, and you suspect she wouldn't give you even that had you not demonstrated that the price of her disobedience was her guards' lives.

You ask for little, and she gives less, but every word in her voice sends shivers down your spine, all of you reaching out for her across every temporal implausibility, every word a victory.

 _Just kill her. Have one less problem,_ Garak urges you after a week and a half with Nerys in your cells has given your people no actionable intelligence. Always impatient, that one, jumping from idea to idea and command to command with no thought for anything but his own skin. No imagination.

You stroke his arm absently as you get up to refill your glasses and put on your best thoughtful expression, but you already know you're not going to. You've killed parts of yourself to get where you are, maybe too many parts if you stop to think about it — which is why you don't — but you won't kill Nerys too.

Nerys is different, special. Nerys is worth more than any of your current officers, even Garak.

Eternity, too, you would give her.

Nerys is worth as long as it takes.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 **kira**  (are we living to die?) || Days slip past in a haze, and whether it's something she's drugging you with or just your body's cells raging against the fundamental _wrongness_ of this universe, you don't know. You sleep much of the time, though the level of light in your cell never changes — textbook interrogation practice, you did the same to enough captured Cardassians that you can't be surprised — and she keeps you fed, though at irregular intervals.

Sometimes it's hard to believe you're in a cell at all, if you don't think too hard about how the Intendent's worst cruelties were always laced in beauty. There's more time for finesse when an entire station bows at a quirk of an eyebrow.

When you are awake, she visits you, almost compulsively, and you wonder that she has the time for it. For all that the guards call you her pet, she talks to you so earnestly, about so many things, that you feel more a confidant than anything. Some sort of living diary, perhaps, that will nod and smile in approval or gasp in horror as needed when she explains differences between your universes or muses over new torture techniques.

You're her enemy, you're in a cell, and you're ... in her mind, you're still her. It's still just the two of you against the station, the Terrans, the whole galaxy in this new configuration. You know the feeling, too, it kept you and most of your cell alive during the Occupation. But you bite down hard against this new sympathetic edge to your understanding of her, because you would never have let the Occupation turn you into this. Right?

It turned others, the traitorous voice in the back of your mind whispers. It turned others and the Federation would want you to kill them for it. Maybe you would even listen.

You could be the only two people in the world, here in the dark. The station hums and creaks around you, all the sounds different on this side. It sounds like her, and you can't stop the jealousy that curls around your heart. Your station will never be _yours_ , not like this.

There's an idea taking shape at the back of your head, a terrible grinding collection of half-thoughts that grow harder and harder to ignore as the rumblings of the Terran rebellion gather more weight. The wormhole brought you here, the wormhole sent Julian back. And the Intendant and her Alliance don't know anything about it. Is going home worth giving her the wormhole?

It's a terrible idea, you think, but she's visited you forty seven times, and while she's holding firm against the Terrans, you're not naive enough to believe she'll last forever. In the Resistance, you proved that everyone can fall. And while you don't trust her, you know that she wants you alive. You can't believe that of anyone else in this universe.

And you can't stop thinking that for the first time, the universes were bridged by the wormhole. By the Prophets. The faith that you had always taken for granted as part of Bajor is absent here, and though you have never been one for evangelising, you can _feel_ its absence and you _wonder_.

The next time she visits, she dismisses the guards, deactivates the forcefield, caresses your bound hands in hers just like every other time. But before she can speak, you say, _I want to show you the wormhole._

The light in her eyes is the warmest thing you've seen since you arrived.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 **mirror!kira** (a soul like mine) || Power. After everything she has done to you, and you to her, she offers you power again. And it's an intoxicating thought, you can't stop the delighted smile that curls the corners of your mouth.

 _A gift!_  you exclaim, and clap your hands. _I don't believe you, of course, but I should give you a little something for being such a model prisoner._

She stumbles over some sort of clarification, denial, but you leave without another word. Best to keep her wanting just a little longer; impatience is, after all, something you share.

You have to _watch yourself_  on the walk back to your quarters. You've never had to before, but now you consider the eyes of the guards lining your halls and wonder who might be listening too closely to Sisko's troublemaking. His betrayal is a loss, one you hadn't expected to feel, but you comfort yourself with the fact that you have Nerys now.

Just a little longer, you think. The wormhole had been her last, desperate play, it must have been. She's lonely, she's thinking too much about the gods that clearly never cared for her. The chains of her own universe are loosening around her, and soon she's going to fall, tumble right into your arms and then you can be together like you were clearly always meant to be.

You can't take her to the wormhole, can't risk her leaving you. And yet you can't get her words out of your head that night. They're present when you call Garak about getting Nerys some new clothes ( _blue, I think, red is so dreadfully old world for her no matter how good a colour it is for us,_  and when he replies _blue like cyanide_  it makes you nervous), they follow you through reports on the newest batch of Terran prisoners (from an illegal merchant ship, with ties to Sisko that a few days in the mines will surely uncover).

Sleep has never come easy to you, but tonight it is more determined than ever to elude you, hovering just out of reach like Nerys' trust. Her talk of wormholes, of Prophets, tugs at something half-remembered and long buried: lights to drown the sun trapped in wooden caves, mountains that would spit fire in response to the lights from the sky, the ungrasped flashes of unnatural light glinting from earrings of those few, those _secret_  who would say _my child_  in a hundred million voices.

Fancies, all of them. The Terrans destroyed the Orbs hundreds of years ago, and _your_  Bajor needed no Prophets — aliens or gods — to break free. _Your_  Bajor was fire and blood and earth, rocks tumbling over invaders, oil and torchlight lighting them up as early funeral pyres and the ground caving under their feet. _Your_ Bajor fought with your people, and took the hands of those who would lift it back to the stars.

Maybe Nerys is weak after all.

Maybe she isn't. If she's known this power, touched it, if it brought her to you — if there's a whole _realm_ outside time and space that you too could know — you're dizzy with the possibilities. Resolidifying your rule on Terok Nor. Keeping Nerys by your side. Bringing Bajor to her rightful place at the head of the Alliance with you and Nerys at her head. Both of you, chosen, _together,_  as it was meant to be.

You go to her long before the station starts thinking about the morning light.

_Tell me more._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 **kira**  (and i don't wanna be like you) || You can't stop thinking about _her_ , after. After you've told her your plan, after the two of you have compared notes on the rise and fall and rise of your respective Bajor's faiths, after she's walked away with a lazy sort of confidence that somehow makes you feel like you've given away _secrets_.

You don't sleep, tossing and turning on the thin blanket that serves as your bed here. You feel _grimy_ , beyond the dirt and sweat of the brig, beyond the ore dust that seeps into every surface. No matter what happens next, you're a collaborator, and not even the thought that she has to be putting her safety on the line talking with you, travelling with you, is a comfort.

You want her to live. The thought does not beat _wrong wrong wrong_  in your heart the way your blood rebels against the changed atomic fabrics of this universe, but it does turn your stomach. Parts of her are the best of you, just as parts of her are the worst of you, and —

— she's not better than you. No matter how much you fight it, you're too alike for her to be better.

And you don't, _can't_  want to be anything like her. Nothing she has done for Bajor can be worth that.

Can it?

You're beginning to wonder if the Prophets brought you here for a reason that has nothing to do with this Bajor's faith, and everything to do with the loss that tightens your throat every time you call a human _Emissary_. Everything to do with pride and ownership and the thin lines connecting _gods_  and _belief._

Garak arrives three shift changes later, bringing a silver-blue jumpsuit made of a fabric that seems to twist and vanish under the lights. _She wants me to escort you to her quarters personally. You're to have a bath before you get to wear this._

He is almost easier to hate, here, but you follow anyway for now. The memory of your first time in her quarters is still sharp: her shifting moods, her plans. You felt like a doll, then. You aren't sure you're anything else now.

You almost trusted him, once. Now he's just another Cardassian face on a station that you're becoming more and more convinced should be Bajoran.

It's instinct, grabbing Garak's knife when the Intendent opens her door and he pulls his disruptor, though it will be weeks before you know what to attribute that instinct to. All you know is she is you and yours, and will die by your hand or no one's.

She considers the corpse on her floor in silence for a long moment, while you stare at the knife and wonder what sort of fate you've just sealed for yourself.

 _You've ruined your new clothes_ , she finally says reproachfully, and for a fleeting second you feel like a child being scolded. But then she shakes her head, and you realise, too late, that any chance you had of ending this is gone. _But I'm being ungrateful_. She steps over Garak's body, cradles your face in her hands, ignores the bloody knife at your side. _Sweet girl. Always with the surprises. I'm so proud._

Her voice is low, husky with promises you're not sure you want her to keep. You don't want to be anything like her.

She kisses your cheek. You drop the knife.

You think maybe you've already made your choice.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 **mirror!kira** (so sweet caress, never long to last) || There's blood on your carpets, again, and replacing them will be a chore you don't have the time for now. But it all seems very far away when Nerys is standing in front of you, your futures in her hands and eyes and heart.

 _I didn't do this for you_ , she says, but her voice wavers. A lie, perhaps. No matter. You've caught her so well, she's your whether she knows it or not. Much more fun when she knows, of course, but you'll get there. The wormhole will make sure of it.

You smile, tilt her chin up. Still beautiful. Less defiant. _It doesn't matter. It was a delight to watch._  Her skin is rough and cold under your fingertips. _Now. I believe you've more than earned your bath._

She looks, for a moment, like she's about to protest, eyes flickering from you to the knife to Garak's corpse and back to the knife, but you silence anything with two fingers against her lips. _Don't worry, it's not an imposition. I have a few more things to get ready for you._

You hand her off to two of your servants, and you're relieved when she goes without complaint. Garak's death is nothing that can't be worked around, of course — you'd been meaning to get to it yourself anyway — but you hadn't expected it of her, and for the first time it makes you a little bit nervous.

Which means the next few hours are all the more critical. Still you take the time to change — all in red, because it really is a wonderful colour for you, and Nerys needs the reminder that this is her _home_  now — and to send one of your servants to fetch a new outfit for Nerys before going to visit your newest gift. Appearances matter now more than ever.

Opaka Sulan was not difficult to find, and you wonder if the Bajoran dissidents know just how capricious the loyalties of their Terran rebel friends are. Blindfolded in your room, she's a beautiful picture. You could probably ruin half the rebellion by broadcasting it, but you need Opaka for bigger things now. You may still kill her later, because it must be you and Nerys alone in the end, but your dreams are shading into solid forms now, and Opaka will be your bridge.

After the Occupation, Bajor was not truly free until every Terran involved was killed, every camp repurposed. Religion had remained untouched, useless during the Occupation and unnecessary after. But Nerys has taught you that Bajor must not only be free, it must be _reclaimed_.

And it would be so much sweeter to lead a planet united. There is much less fun in killing those who haven't personally wronged you.

 _Intendent,_ she says icily when you untie her.

 _Oh, we needn't be like that_ , you chide her, arranging yourself on the sofa opposite. _I know all about the little faith experiments you're trying on with your Terran friends. They gave you up, you know. Why not try making an ally of someone who can actually help?_

She meets your gaze unflinchingly, and you decide then that you like her. _I have no reason to trust you._

You laugh. _Oh, but you will._  You hope your servants remember what you told them about Nerys' entrance. _You see, I'm going to take you to your Prophets. You don't even have to die for it._

The door opens behind you, and you sense Nerys' presence without turning around. Your three bodies, and Bajor's soul caught between, inextricable. All for you, and for Nerys beside you.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 **kira**  (arise sweet demon and have your say) || _Eminence._

The title is out of your mouth before you can stop yourself, even though this Opaka is nothing like the one you left behind. She is thin to the point of gaunt, scarred and unapologetic. On her, serenity is unsettling, fleeting, though something that might once have been kindness lurks in her eyes. Her vedek's robes are handmade, imperfect echoes of those you know.

But she is _alive._

The Intendent is delighted at your recognition. _Sit with me_ , she urges, pulling you down to the couch, hands lingering too long. _We have so much to tell our new friend._

This Opaka looks nothing like a friend, but she listens with the same intensity that yours did, seems apart from the world just like yours was. The Intendent's hands are the only familiar thing in the room, and you tighten your grip on them almost unconsciously. She's proud and _hungry_  when she glances down at your joined hands.

You're only together as long as it takes to get to the wormhole, you remind yourself. And then, if everything goes right, you'll be gone, and you won't have to think anymore about the woman with your face who promised you Bajor arisen, if only you would accept her cruelties. Perhaps Opaka will help. Perhaps the Prophets will save them both after you're gone.

You yourself were never beyond saving. You don't want to believe that _she_  is, despite everything.

The Intendent demands a shuttle, and the ride to the wormhole passes in relative silence. You prefer it that way. Silence is a familiar companion after years of hiding, days of stakeouts.

Not so the Intendent, who radiates a confident excitement as she paces behind you, mumbling to Opaka in this universe's odd mix of contemporary and ancient Bajoran that your translator skips and stutters over until you finally shove it off in irritation, wincing as the switch on your commbadge digs into your skin. It's a Klingon shuttle, and for all your skill you have neither the chance nor the knowledge to recreate the circumstances of your arrival. All you can do is wait, and trust that whatever reason the Prophets had for sending you here, you've lived up to.

The wormhole opening feels much less like home than you'd imagined it would. Months without seeing it after a year of seeing it multiple times a day have dulled your memory, and the swirl of colour in front of you seems menacing, the wormhole a gaping wound across the stars instead of a gateway.

 _Oh,_  someone whispers, and it's your voice but you can't tell if it's you or her. Opaka is silent, but in the light from the viewscreen her eyes seem abnormally large, the wormhole reflected in them like it might swallow them whole, if she didn't consume it first.

This could be your freedom. This could be your end. And in the last moment before the womhole takes you, you think —

— _can I really leave her?_

Opaka's right hand closes around yours and it's electric, something charged slipping over you with such ease you know her other hand must be holding one of the Intendent's.

And all is white.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 **mirror!kira**  (play the mute and my fortune be yours) || The Klingons killed their gods long ago, and you had always thought that should you ever meet yours, you might do the same. You owe them nothing, after all, and anything they give you would come with a price you wouldn't need to pay if you simply _took_.

But here in this vast nothing, there is nothing to kill, nothing to _see._  You reach instinctively for the disruptor at your hip, but it's not there. Your jumpsuit has been replaced by vedek's robes like those Opaka was wearing.

 _This one is strong,_ a hundred thousand voices whisper around you, the sounds curling around you like something physical. _Stronger even than the Sisko._

You smirk. Of course you're stronger than Ben. He was a coward when he captained one of your ships, and a coward still when he left you for vague promises of a new empire.

 _This one does not care,_  a hundred thousand different voices reply. _This one cares only for herself, though she leads._

Unfair, you want to rage. You care for your crew, your workers. You cared for Ben. You care for Nerys, shining and proud and  -- where? Where were she and Opaka taken when you were dropped here?

You tricked me, you try to say, but your voice remains out of reach.

 _Not a trick._  Opaka. She sits beside you suddenly, blurred around the edges but her voice is singular. _A gift. An experience of the Prophets infinitely beyond any our Orb fragments could grant you._

 _You understand, now_. Nerys, in her Bajoran militia uniform. She looks almost apologetic. _I didn't know what would happen. I didn't expect this. I thought..._

She thought she could leave you, you realise. There are hardly even bodies, much less universes between you now, and you know. And she must know everything about you. As it should be.

 _You must look beyond._  Another vedek, this one in gold, her arms wrapped around Opaka. Another vedek, but not, because her face shifts through a hundred thousand faces and her voice is a hundred thousand voices. A Prophet, alien and should-be-unknowable and yet still here for you. _You lead, but you don't lead well. Bajor is not yet free._

You've killed people for less, but here you cannot even move.

 _Adami_ , Opaka sighs as if she does not recognise her own gods. _She is simple and cruel, but she listens. She listens to her other self. It is why she brought me here._

Simple, yes. Power for Bajor, Nerys for you, the winds of the universe caught on your breath. It seems not too much to ask.

 _See, she listens now_ , the first voices say. _We must give her the chance. Our Emissary, to right the first one's wrongs._

Nerys doesn't move but she stands before you now, bright and whole and infinite. _Emissary_ , she says, and kisses your forehead as everything fades away.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 **kira**  (entangle you're, you're twisted) || Your Orb experiences have been nothing like this. You're out of space, out of time, but there is no serene meditation here, just a terrible inexorable _purpose_  pressing down on you. You're back on Bajor, though you can hardly see a metre on either side of you through the white fog of vision.

But it feels _right_ , for the first time since you and Bashir landed in a different universe. In the Prophets' land, you feel like you _belong_.

And it's terrifying.

This, you know, must have been what Sisko felt when he first went through the wormhole, and jealousy that you thought had long given way to respect claws at your throat. It should have been _Bajor's_.

And now it is. The wormhole here is Bajoran. Your gift to your people who are not _yous_  but who have stolen you body and heart alike. Unless .... _unless._  It is Bajoran, but at the cost of being _hers_.

 _My child_. Opaka. _Your_  Opaka, kind and grounded and nothing but everything like the sharp haunted woman in the shuttle with you. _My child, have you not seen now that everything hers is also yours?_

 _No,_  you whisper, but the denial is so hard here after so long. _I have a home. I wanted you to..._

Another one, now with your — with _her_ — face walks up to you through the mist. _Don't you know? Your home is fading. It's too late. They've chosen their human Emissary, and his Federation will keep him above you until you fold._

No, you want to say again, but it still sounds wrong. No, Sisko is earning your trust, he _tries_ and he can be _taught_ —

— and he is still not of Bajor. The Federation is not of Bajor. The Intendent, for everything else she is, is of Bajor.

Not yours, but does that matter so much? Where do her crimes fall, against the Federation's, against your own?

The Intendent wraps herself around you, skin and leather. _My Ben betrayed me,_  she says, and the pain in her voice is genuine. _Our universes are not so unalike. Are we not proof of that?_

You were sent here for a reason, it's that faith that has kept you throughout your imprisonment here. You just never expected that reason to mean you had to _stay_  here.

 _Bajor is meant to be strong,_  Opaka says mournfully. Flames curl around her feet. _We were wrong once. But here, no more of our children need die. Here, we will make things right. With you. Nerys._

The Intendent's arms tighten around you, and you lean into her touch before you can stop yourself. _I could change, I think,_  she says breathlessly. _Anything you ask of me. For us. For Bajor._

Everything about your former life tells you this should not be. The Prophets are not supposed to fall. The Prophets are not supposed to _ask_.

But they guide. They guided you here.

 _Walk with the Prophets,_ the old blessings said. Even after the discovery of the wormhole, it was not meant to be literal. But now...

 _Yes,_  you say, and then, _Nerys,_  and the last thing you see before the earth swallows you is her smile.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 **mirror!kira**  (it's a promise i may well break before the end of the day) || You blink back to consciousness on the floor of the shuttle in a tangle of limbs with Nerys. Every inch of you is still humming with the revelations of your vision.

 _Emissary._  It's a good word, a good title, and it settles comfortably across your shoulders.

There is room in your heart for yourself, for Nerys. There can be room there too for the world that gave both of you life.

You consider the thought with the strange sort of care that talking with Nerys has taught you. Is it true? Does it have to be? You're still proud of the works you wrought as the Intendent, shining monuments to a world arisen and an unmistakable warning: anyone can fall, but we will never fall again.

 _Emissary_ , Opaka says, and light still clings to her edges. She is marked, now. You all are.

_I like the sound of that._

She sighs, shakes her head. _You have much to learn, and much trust still to gain. Your methods must change, now._

You frown. Your methods brought you here. _I didn't promise good. I didn't promise anything._

 _You promised to listen,_  she says, and you wonder if that was a mistake already.

But then Nerys stirs in your arms, and when she opens her eyes she looks haunted for the first time since you've met her. There is determination under it all, though, and again for the first time you know it's for you. All for you.

She opens her eyes, and does not pull away. _Nerys,_  she says, and for a fleeting moment you think that everything that has happened has been worth it for this moment alone, with no care for anything to come. What did she see, far out in the white?

It doesn't matter. Her gods have told her to stay, and they have named you her Emissary, and with you, for you, she will rise.

She laces her fingers through yours.

And above your linked hands Bajor raises her head with flaming eyes and beneath you the galaxy trembles.

**Author's Note:**

> falls over i originally planned this to be just a fanmix i may have uh
> 
> gotten carried away a bit
> 
> i hope you enjoyed reading it as much as i enjoyed writing it!


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